


more than one way home

by IWillNotBeSilenced



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gansey comforts him, In a non-sexy way, Lots of Touching, M/M, Ronan is grieving and has nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 15:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWillNotBeSilenced/pseuds/IWillNotBeSilenced
Summary: Ronan’s life has been cleaved into a before and an after and Gansey, who loves beautiful, broken things, knows he will never be able to put him back together in such a way that the cracks never show.





	more than one way home

**Author's Note:**

> This is such self-indulgent angst I'm not even a little bit sorry.

A strangled yell breaks into Gansey’s fractured sleep. He’s stumbling out of bed before he’s even properly awake and scrabbling on his nightstand for his glasses, staggering across the warehouse floor and wrenching open Ronan’s door. 

It’s been two weeks since Ronan found Niall Lynch’s body in his driveway. A week since the funeral. A week since Ronan moved into Monmouth Manufacturing. Three days since Ronan’s nightmares started and three days since Gansey has slept in more than fitful bursts.

Gansey stands in the doorway and peers through the darkness. Writhing in his sheets, eyes screwed shut and shouting like nothing Gansey had ever heard before this week, Ronan’s back arches before bringing his fists up to his head, curling in on himself and shuddering and sobbing and Gansey can’t take anymore.

‘Ronan!’ Gansey is shouting, his voice breaking with fear that he thinks might be for himself. How is he ever meant to bring Ronan back from this? 

He falls to his knees beside Ronan’s bed, a cheap, rickety thing dragged in at short notice and it creaks under Gansey’s weight as he leans forward over the other boy’s shaking form. 

‘Ronan?’ He says again and reaches out, brushing his palm over Ronan’s forehead and pressing his thumb against the agonised expression between his eyebrows.   
Gansey doesn’t think he’s enough to handle this. 

‘Ronan! Wake up!’ 

Gansey jerks back as Ronan jolts upright, grabbing at Gansey’s face, his arms. Nothing Ronan is mumbling makes any sense, but Gansey catches words, distorted with terror. ‘Dad…the blood…car…Declan please.’

‘Ronan, it’s Gansey.’ Gansey holds Ronan’s wrists where they grip his face, trying not to grimace where the other boy’s nails dig into the skin. ‘Gansey.’ He reiterates, waiting for Ronan’s expression to resolve into lucidity or understanding or just something resembling a trapped animal a little less. It hurts Gansey to look at him. 

‘Gansey.’ Ronan says. His expression stills, a blankness that is once relieving and heart-wrenching, the tears streaming down his cheeks and his heaving chest speaking to an infinite, depthless pain that Gansey’s whole body reacts to. He reaches for the back of Ronan’s neck and looks at him dead-on. 

‘Yeah.’ He murmurs. ‘I’m here, Ronan. I’m here. You’re safe.’

Ronan shakes his head slowly in a gesture both childlike and ancient. His shaved hair scuffs Gansey’s fingers. ‘/They’re gone, Gansey/.’

Gansey feels like he’s missed a step on the stairs. Or ten. 

‘No, Ronan.’ Just Niall, he thinks.

‘Dad. Mum. Declan. /Matthew/.’ His voice chokes him on the last, and he dissolves into panicked gasps.

‘Aurora’s alive Ronan. She is.’

Ronan is shaking his head again, repetitive, disbelieving, a futile self-soothing gesture.

‘Ronan. Ronan, stop. Look at me. Hey.’

Ronan’s face stills between Gansey’s palms and he looks up at him through tear-filled eyes, expression torn ragged.

‘Declan and Matthew? They’re here. They’re at Aglionby. They haven’t gone anywhere.’

‘We’re homeless.’ 

The deadness in his voice forces Gansey to fight the urge to curl himself into the foetal position himself. The Barns /is/ Ronan. The Ronan he knew, anyway. That Ronan might be gone forever and Gansey is entirely powerless to bring him back. He has no idea what to do with this fragile, broken boy whose darkness simultaneously consumes and repels everything around him. 

‘You have a home Ronan.’ Gansey’s voice is quiet. ‘We’ll make Monmouth your home.’

Ronan looks at him strangely. ‘It’s you.’

‘What is?’

Ronan repeats, ‘It has to be you. Don’t leave me, Gansey.’

‘I’m not leaving.’ Gansey has never made his home in any place before Henrietta. Has never made it in any person. He leads, others follow him, rely on him. But never like this. He feels himself become bigger and smaller at once. ‘I won’t leave you, Ronan.’

A keening sob tears itself from Ronan and whatever strength was keeping him upright goes out of him. He falls forwards and Gansey wrap his arms around him immediately, holding Ronan against him. Gansey feels the timelessness nagging at him, the sense that it has always been this way; Ronan, breaking. Gansey, holding him up.

Gansey eases himself off his knees and positions himself on the bed so he’s facing Ronan, bending his legs at the knee to form a sort of shelter around his body. He feels the other boy trembling against his chest, face damp on his shoulder. He thinks about rocking him, the way Aurora would have, but he can’t quite bring himself to. The knowledge that Gansey cannot fix this makes him hollow. Ronan’s life has been cleaved into a before and an after and Gansey, who loves beautiful, broken things, knows he will never be able to put him back together in such a way that the cracks never show. 

He runs his fingers over Ronan’s head, feeling the short, blunt spikes that Ronan will direct outwards at the world from now on and lets the weight of responsibility settle onto his shoulders. He will be Ronan’s home. His family. His port in a storm. Until he can stand on his own again, Gansey will be whatever Ronan needs him to be. 

He rests his cheek on Ronan’s head, and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure about posting this one but the muse just cannot be stopped. Let me know if you liked it maybe?


End file.
